by Bill Noel
2
I flicked off the TV, finished my sandwich, moved to the living room, and smiled about how both Bob and Charles assumed I would know something about the body found fewer than two miles from my small cottage. A few years ago, it would have never entered my mind to give more than a few seconds of thought to what happened. Yes, I had stuck my nose where it didn’t belong a few times, but I only did it at the urging of Charles or when it involved a friend. While growing up and throughout my many years in Kentucky, I had paid a premium on friendships. I didn’t have many close friends, two at the most, but not until I moved to Folly, and I suppose had matured and gotten a better perspective on my world, did I hold friendships as close as I do now. Seeing those friends in danger or in pain tugged at my heart and I knew unless I did something to lessen that danger or their pain, I was a failure. It led me to a few situations that I could easily have lost my life over, but I’ve never regretted getting involved.
A glance at the clock revealed I must have dozed. It was after three in the afternoon and my neck hurt from sleeping in the chair. I stood, stretched, and walked to the screened-in front porch. Several cars were parked in the small lot in front of Bert’s Market, my neighbor on the right, and two large construction vans barreled past the house on Ashley Avenue, Folly’s longest street that ran from the shuttered Coast Guard Station property on the east end, to the site of the death on the west.
To the left of my cottage was Brad and Hazel Burton’s house. In a move that must have had the god of irony doubled over with laughter, the Burtons moved in next to me two years ago. Brad had been a thorn in my side for the five years before that when he had been a detective in the Charleston County Sheriff’s Office. He accused me of murder my first month on the island and despite me helping the police catch the killer, he had been angry with me ever since. Every time I stuck my nose in police business, which was far more times than I had hoped to, Brad was on my case. For a time, he was partnered with Karen Lawson, the detective I had dated for several years, and I got better acquainted with the incompetent detective. To the elation of most of his colleagues, he had retired and moved next door. When he bought the house, he didn’t know I would be his neighbor. When he found out, it was too late to back out and he had avoided me ever since moving in. For that, I was thankful.
Brad and Hazel’s late model Chryslers were usually the only vehicles at the house, so I was surprised to see two Ford Crown Vics in the drive. I was even more surprised when I recognized the dark gray one as Chief Cindy LaMond’s unmarked car. Several questions rushed through my mind. Was something wrong with one of the Burtons? Unlikely, since there were no emergency vehicles at their house, and if there had been an emergency call, members of the Folly Beach Department of Public Safety who served the dual role of police officers and fire fighters would have responded. So, no sirens, no flashing lights, no emergency. Could it have something to do with the death near the park? Was Cindy there to get retired detective Burton’s help? That seemed remote, since she hadn’t felt much better about Burton’s competency as a detective than I had—which was next to none. Then, who did the other vehicle belong to? It could simply have been a black Crown Vic, unrelated to law enforcement. Brad and I were far from being best buds, so I wasn’t about to knock on his door and ask. Let’s hope Charles didn’t see the cars there.
The official-looking vehicles were gone when I walked to Bert’s to get supper. Eric, an affable employee, nearly ran into me as I walked through the double doors into the iconic grocery. He was carrying a stack of boxes and apologized for nearly running me down. He was stopped, so I asked if he knew what the chief was doing at the Burtons. Bert’s is the go-to store for everything from beer to bait and was open twenty-four hours a day. If anyone wanted to know what was going on nearby, Bert’s or the Lost Dog Cafe were the places to begin. They were hangouts for locals and nearly every vacationer who set foot on the island. I was surprised when Eric said he didn’t know and hadn’t noticed the cars, nor had Chief LaMond been in Bert’s this afternoon. It made more sense when he said he had been in the back and this was the first time he’d seen daylight in the last three hours. He offered to ask around and let me know if he learned anything. I thanked him and said it wouldn’t be necessary. My culinary skills were slightly lower than my skills at splitting the atom, so I grabbed a frozen pizza and a cheap bottle of Chardonnay. My cable television had inadvertently landed on the Cooking Channel a month ago, and in a fit of boredom, I spent a half hour watching some famous chef show how easy it was to fix some exotic recipe using the microwave. Perhaps old dogs could learn a few tricks, especially if they were easy, and I was now proficient in using my microwave. I had switched the television off before I was tempted to use my oven.
I figuratively patted myself on my back for mastering heating the pizza, took the last bite which was now cold and tasted a lot like a piece of cardboard slathered with ketchup and called Chief LaMond.
She answered on the third ring and said, “I win!”
“Win what?” I said, skipping my preferred greeting of “Hi, Cindy.”
“Larry bet me ten bucks you wouldn’t call until tomorrow. I said you’d be pestering me before the night was over. Poor boy will never learn.”
Larry was Cindy’s husband of six years and owner of Pewter Hardware, Folly’s best—only—hardware store. I had known him since before he’d met Cindy and considered him a good friend.
“Congratulations, I suppose.”
“Wonder when the little squirt will start believing everything I say,” she said, and repeated, “Poor boy.”
Larry weighed one hundred pounds, more or less, and was five foot one, but only Cindy could get away with saying anything about his diminutive size. And heaven forbid anyone use the word squirt around him unless they were referring to a toy that shoots water.
“Guess he’s a slow learner,” I said.
“You’ve made my night, Mr. Perceptive Nosy Resident. Wait until I tell him what you called him.”
“I’ll deny it. Now could we get to why I called?”
“Sure. I know you geezers are always afraid you’ll die before you get to ask all your questions.”
Since I had now reached the second half of my sixties, I consider geezer status not beginning until I reach my nineties. Cindy was still in her early fifties, but I didn’t see any point in debating her.
“What were you doing at the Burtons this afternoon?”
“And I thought you called to invite Larry and me to supper, or here’s another thought, you wanted to know the details about the body.”
“I’ll have my people check with your people about supper, and of course I want to know about the body, but…”
“The seriously deceased person happened to be a Ms. Lauren Craft, age 41. She had been in her most recent state of dead for two hours when found by a nearby resident headed to the park and its beach to find his fortune in the sand. Looks like a drug overdose, heroin would be my guess. There was a used hypodermic needle on the floorboard below her right hand.”
“Are you sure it…”
Cindy interrupted my interruption, “I’m not finished.”
“Sorry, proceed.”
“That’s more like it. I’m a big fan of citizens apologizing. Anyway, it appears Ms. Craft had been in and out of drug rehab facilities several times. My guys checked her address on East Ashley Avenue and were greeted by her two roommates. Umm, give me a sec.” I heard paper rustling and Larry’s voice in the background and Cindy said, “Sweetie, get out your wallet. Yes, it’s Nosy Chris. Yes, I’m serious. Ten bucks, now.” The phone clanked against something and Cindy said, “I’m back. The late Ms. Craft had two roommates, Candice Richardson and Katelin Hatchett. Candice works as a clerk in a Real Estate office in downtown Charleston; Ms. Hatchett said she’s ‘between jobs’ which probably means she got fired from her last one. Think her former career was in the waitressing field.”
“What did Lauren Craft do?”
I exhaled and didn’t say anything.
Cindy took the hint. “Seems she didn’t work. One of the roommates said they didn’t know where she got her money. She never had a lot, but they said she didn’t have a job.”
“Are you sure it was an overdose?”
“Chris, to you every death is a murder. Gee, can’t people die on their own? You don’t need to get involved in everything.”
“Just curious.”
“Yeah, right. Anyway, it appears that way, but we won’t know more until the autopsy is complete. Now to your first question, you know the one about me being next door.”
“I remember, Cindy. I’m not so old that I’m forgetting everything.”
“It wouldn’t be hard to find some folks who would disagree. Anyway, here’s the sad news. Lauren Craft was Brad and Hazel Burton’s daughter.”
3
Other than being on the high side of nosy, Charles felt that if any of his friends learned anything he might have the slightest interest in knowing, the friend must tell Charles within a nanosecond of learning it. So the first thing I did after talking with Cindy was to call my friend.
After a dozen rings, I hit end call. Up until several months ago, Charles failing to answer was the norm. He had a phone in his apartment and unless he was there the call would have been wasted. He didn’t have an answering machine and didn’t own a cell phone until he and his long-term girlfriend, Heather, had moved to Nashville so she could pursue her dream: a career as a country music singer. She had been talked into moving to the country music capital of the universe by an agent who had heard her sing at an open-mic night. No one had ever compared Heather’s voice to her idol Patsy Cline; truth be known, no one had ever compared it to the melodious singing voice of a snapping turtle, but nothing could deter her from trying. To say Heather and Charles’s move to Nashville was a disaster would be a gross understatement. The highlights of the trip included Heather being arrested for killing her agent, her attempting to kill herself, and me nearly being murdered. I’ll save the details for another time, but suffice to say, only two good things came from their move: Charles’s cell phone purchase and Heather deciding they should move back home to Folly where she could pursue singing in front of far less discerning audiences. I hit redial and gave Charles one more chance to get the latest news. No luck. You can lead Charles to a phone, but you can’t make him answer.
I tried again the next morning with better luck. Charles answered, and I began telling him what I had learned about the body in the park.
“Whoa!” he interrupted. “When did you find out?”
“Last night.”
“Last night! That was hours ago. And you waited all those many hours to tell me? Why didn’t you call me?”
I rest my case!
“Charles, I tried. I called twice but you didn’t have your phone on.”
“Excuses, excuses. Hmm, maybe I was sort of with Heather. We were…”
“More than I need to know. The point is I tried.”
“Okay,” Charles said. “Apology accepted. What’d you learn?”
I must have missed the apology; regardless, arguing with him would be like arguing with a jellybean. I told him the details Cindy had shared and who Lauren’s parents were.
He hesitated and said, “You’re kidding.”
I assured him I wasn’t.
“I didn’t know he had a daughter.”
“I didn’t either,” I said, “but I also don’t know much of anything about him other than he was a terrible detective, he can’t stand me, and he lives next door.”
“When are we going to go pay our respects?”
“Never, would be my first choice,” I said.
“He’s your neighbor. Because he hates you is no reason not to tell him, especially his wife, that you’re sorry about their loss.”
Charles was right, at least this time, and I told him we should probably wait until this afternoon or tomorrow. Charles said he had to make some deliveries for the surf shop and wouldn’t be available until late afternoon. I thought the later the better and suggested tomorrow. He asked what time this afternoon would work. I sighed and said around six.
“I’ll be at your house at five.”
Charles hasn’t owned a watch since I’ve known him, but time was one of his many quirks. He considers on time to be thirty minutes earlier than most mortals do and seldom fails to point out how late people were if they showed up on time. When he said he would be at the house at five, I assumed he thought it would take us a whopping half hour to walk from my house next door so we could arrive by five-thirty instead of six o’clock like I had suggested. Charles was Charles, love him or leave him. Until moving to Folly, I had been under the misunderstanding that appointed times equaled appointed times. I had adjusted to Charles time.
As sure as clockwork, I stepped out my front door at five o’clock and was greeted by Charles. It was in the upper eighties, but he wore a long-sleeve, navy blue T-shirt with a gold NYPD logo over the breast pocket. His usual attire included a long-sleeve college T-shirt or sweatshirt with a logo of the college mascot adorning the front. He didn’t say it, but the NYPD shirt was his way of showing respect to Brad Burton, the former cop. For reasons I had not been able to determine, the shirts were always long-sleeved, and he carried a handmade, wooden cane. Charles, at five-foot eight, was a couple of inches shorter than me and a few pounds lighter. He had shaven for today’s sympathy visit, but still had stubble on his chin and with his unruly gray hair, could have been mistaken for a street person. Today he looked his best.
“Well, I see you’re looking boring as usual,” he said and pointed his ever-present cane at me.
My green polo shirt was adorned with nothing, and I had on light-weight tan slacks, and boat shoes. Most of my work life had required a coat and tie, and I seldom wore a message on my chest. Charles considered it boring, and to him it was, but it was me. The one thing that did surprise me about Charles was that he was carrying a clear vase with several flowers in it. They looked suspiciously like blooms from a landscaped area in the yard next to Charles’s apartment.
“You didn’t have to bring me flowers,” I said.
“Ha, ha. They’re for the Burtons.”
As if I didn’t know that. Regardless of their origin, it was a thoughtful gesture, but I wasn’t about to acknowledge it.
“Want a beer?” I asked since I was in no hurry to visit my nemesis.
Charles looked at his watch-less wrist. “Guess we have time.”
“Do they know we’re coming?”
“No.”
I chose not to comment further about having time and waved him in. He set the flowers on the front porch and followed me to the kitchen, grabbed a Bud Light from the refrigerator, took a large sip, and plopped down in one of the chairs at my kitchen table.
“Hear anything about Lauren’s death?” I asked and poured a small glass of Chardonnay.
In a community of numerous rumor collectors, Charles was among the best. If he put half as many hours in something that paid as he does cajoling information—both fact and fiction—out of others, he would be one of the city’s wealthiest citizens.
“Heather said she heard from one of the hairdressers at the salon that Lauren was dating someone over here.”
In addition to being an aspiring singer, Heather was a psychic, or so she said, and made a living as a massage therapist at Milli’s Salon.
I took a sip of wine and asked, “What’s interesting about that?”
“The hairdresser has known Lauren for several years and while she’s dated several guys, this was the first serious one.”
“Who is he?”
“The hairdresser didn’t know.”
“Hear anything about her death?”
Charles looked at his wrist. “That’s one of the reasons we’re going next door.”
Charles prided himself on being a private det
ective. That’s using the terms loosely since he had zero training in the field and wouldn’t qualify as a private detective in South Carolina, or any other state that had a semblance of qualifications for the profession. His rationale for being qualified was that he had watched countless police shows on TV and had read countless books involving private eyes. Charles was a voracious reader and owned more books than many small-town libraries. His imaginary profession had been bolstered over the last few years because he and I had stumbled, bumbled, and fell into several murders and through pure luck and a little skill, had helped the police catch some killers. Which brought me back to Brad Burton and why he had such strong negative feelings about me, and probably Charles.
I nodded. “And I thought it was to express our sympathy to Lauren’s parents.”
“That too,” Charles took a sip of beer, clinked his can down on the table, and pointed his cane toward the front door. “We’re late.”
I shook my head and followed him out.
4
The Burtons had lived in their home for a brief period, but during that time they improved the exterior, both house and the landscape. Hazel spent hours planting flowers, rearranging landscape beds, and supervising a landscape company as it cut the grass on a regular basis. I had never seen Brad in the yard other than when he was showing a painting crew what he wanted done to the exterior. And, I never saw anyone visit. I would have sworn they didn’t have any children, or at least none who lived nearby.
It only took us a couple of minutes to make the trip from my cottage to the Burtons’ newly painted, attractive ranch house. It was larger than my cottage, and I had wondered how the Burtons could have afforded it on a detective’s retirement. Charles knew my feelings about Brad and on the walk over suggested that the retired detective had mellowed since turning in his badge. Charles was an eternal optimist but was often eternally wrong. As we stepped on their recently painted concrete front porch, I hoped he was right, but didn’t think there was a chance.